Hello from Houston

[jethrien]

I'm in Houston for a conference.

I do not like Houston, I find.

Downtown is an office park in sky-scrapers. There's basically nothing at ground level. The few restaurants and bars? Closed on Sundays. The visitor center is closed on Sundays. There is nothing here. I went for a 45 minute walk, in which the only open place I found was a CVS and I saw maybe 30 people. Three quarters of which were homeless, and may have had fewer teeth combined than I have in total. I guess everyone lives in the suburbs and just drives in during the week, but this isn't a city. An abandoned handful of skyscrapers doesn't count. No one lives here. I ended up calling Chuckro in a vague existential crisis. Gah.

On the other hand, I had the very best ribs I've ever had in my life. I will defend to the death any Texan's claim that they do the best barbeque. Good lord, these people know their way around a smoker.

Comments

[maydove.livejournal.com]

I've only been to the Rice University area of Houston, but Rice Village near the university has some great restaurants (and shopping).

[lithoglyphic.livejournal.com]

I've never been in Houston, but you're probably in the wrong pocket of the city. Atlanta's "downtown" has similar issues, until you realize that downtown is merely the name of one particular neighborhood. The part of Atlanta that deserves the name "downtown" is actually Midtown. This seems to be how southern cities are built.

[cubby-t-bear.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you're probably in the business or someshing district. A lot of the cities built post-car tend to have that kind of topology -- residential and recreation areas far from the work-area "core," insofar as there is one.

[lithoglyphic.livejournal.com]

Ah, Texas BBQ. That reminds me that I should write a post...

[firynze.livejournal.com]

And yet I've heard Houston trumpeted from the mountains as an AWESOME place for engaged, hip young people to go do startups and engage with the arts and whatnot.

Weird.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

I think it's just such a different style of city living that I don't quite know how to engage with it. There are definitely a ton of museums and theaters. It's just you need to completely set aside the notion of a walkable city. If you want to do something, you will get in a car. If you want to do something else now, you will get back in the car. Nothing's connected. So if you don't know the area, it's wasteland because you don't know where to go for the pockets of interesting things. There's just no street culture at all.

[firynze.livejournal.com]

That sounds a lot like LA, where EVERYTHING is a half-hour drive away. Totally different mentality than East Coast cities